John Mark’s Study Abroad

This past week has been one of the best I have ever had.  We had a full week break from any school work or required sites, and we got to travel and do whatever we wanted.  On my free travels I joined Burson, Tommy, Scott, Shyam, and Chase.   We traveled to Munich, Interlaken, and then 24 hours on a train to Barcelona, with a few long stops on the way.

We arrived in Munich about four in the afternoon, just enough time to check in, grab an early dinner, and headed to the Englishcher Beer Gardens for the finals of the Euro Cup 2008.  We joined about 5000 other crazy Deutschland fans, and about another 500 Spain fans.

Even though Germany lost, the fans still went out and celebrated getting second place.  It was like nothing I have seen before, unexpectedly they cheered for Spain, then celebrated in the streets.  I was very impressed with there sportsmanship.

The next day we slept in a little bit then we to a really cool museum.  Note this is the first time I have said really cool and museum in the same sentence.  It had tons of different exhibits with a lot of hands on stuff. 

While we were in Munich we went to Dacau, a Nazi concentration camp.  I don’t want to think, or talk, or ever look at pictures again, It was awful. 

We also went to the BMW headquarters, and then the Olympic Park.

I made a video again, I feel like those really bring the trip to life better than I can with pictures or words.  So I hope you enjoy!

Interlaken was awesome!  It with out a doubt has been my favorite place.  Canyoning was incredible.  I was smiling ear to ear the entire 8 hours.  I absolutely loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat.  We had to girls from Oklahoma City in our group, the us six guys.  Our guides were great, and real intense.  We got to be friends with the girls, and hung out with them that night and all the next day.  It was fun to have some good company.

The next day we just walked around the city with our friends, played in the park.  We took a bunch of pictures while jumping in the air… this one turned out great, but the landing was very rough.

Took pictures in front of the American Flag (it was the 4th of July)

That afternoon we left at 4:00 pm heading to barcelona.  We originally planned to take a night train, but they were all booked, so we had to travel all across the continent to arrive in Barcelona at 4:30 the following day.  We keep ourselves entertained all trip with card games, train aerobics, looking at pictures from the trip, meeting people, walking around cities, eating, and laughing a ton.